The present invention relates to graphical user interfaces such as used with general-purpose computers, and relates more specifically to systems for obtaining overviews of icons or other display graphics representing relatively large quantities of data.
In the computer industry, use of graphical user interfaces, or GUIs, is well known for enabling a user to select a particular file of data (such as a word-processing file, or a graphics file) from a large available selection. A GUI is a type of display format that enables a user to operate a computer by pointing to pictorial representations, such as xe2x80x9cwindowsxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cicons,xe2x80x9d displayed on a screen device. A window is a rectangle displayed on the screen that affords a user work space within a program. In typical operation, the user may move the window about on the screen, change its size or shape, enlarge it to fill the screen, close it entirely, or change how much of its contents are displayed.
To navigate within a GUI, such as to select a particular file to be opened, most systems employ a screen cursor or pointer, typically displayed as a small arrow which allows the user to select individual points on the screen. In operation, the cursor is moved to a desired screen location in response to movements of a pointing device (e.g., a mouse, trackball, or equivalent) by the user. Besides effecting cursor movement, most pointing devices include one or more switches or xe2x80x9cmouse buttonsxe2x80x9d for specifying additional user input or user events. Since many user choices may be entered through use of a pointing device instead of input with a keyboard, the need for the user to memorize special commands is lessened.
With particular reference to accessing data desired to be viewed, a standard arrangement of a GUI is to provide a hierarchy of containers into which individual files can be organized. For instance, a set of xe2x80x9cfilesxe2x80x9d can be placed in a xe2x80x9cfolder,xe2x80x9d a set of xe2x80x9cfoldersxe2x80x9d can be placed in a xe2x80x9cdrawer,xe2x80x9d and so forth, up to items which may characterized as cabinets or drives. For present purposes, the important fact is that the basic unit of a set of data which may be wished to be viewed is here called the xe2x80x9cfilexe2x80x9d: a file may be a word-processing document, a graphics-program document, a spread sheet, or some other form of data that is capable of making sense standing alone. Also for present purposes, all containers which may contain one or more files will be called a xe2x80x9cfolder,xe2x80x9d even though in different contexts folders may exist within other folders, and higher-level metaphors may be used, such as drawer and cabinet.
When a folder is opened in the context of a GUI, there is typically displayed a rectangular space on the screen, and within this rectangular space is displayed a set of icons, each icon being associated with one file (such as a text or graphics file) in the folder. In common operating systems such as Macintosh(copyright) or Windows(trademark), documents of a particular type, such as word-processing documents, are typically all assigned icons of a identical basic appearance, such as of a sheet with a folded corner, or a stylized capital W. By and large, the only way to distinguish between icons of a type relating to different files is to associate with each icon a short file name which is displayed underneath the icon. However, very often, a file name which makes sense to the creator of the file will be largely meaningless to another user.
The present invention is a utility, which can be superimposed over an existing operating system such as Windows(trademark), that enables a user to quickly identify the basic contents of each of a large number of files which are identified as icons within a folder in a GUI.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,637 describes a graphical user interface including providing xe2x80x9chintsxe2x80x9d for screen objects of interest. When a cursor merely touches a particular icon on the screen, a status frame or window, which is positioned in a non-intrusive fashion below or to one side of an active portion of the user interface, is continually updated with descriptive information relating to a particular icon as a screen cursor moves from one icon to another. The patent further contains a general background description of a utility known as xe2x80x9cballoon help,xe2x80x9d in which graphical buttons a toolbar in a graphical user interface are provided with xe2x80x9cpop-upsxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cballoonsxe2x80x9d which appear next to the cursor to explain the function of the button.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,935 discloses a graphical user interface system which allows the user to implement pop-up menus and gestural marks when the input location in the GUI is restricted, such as in a corner region. In such a situation, the system translates the desired pop-up menu from one location where space is limited to another location where space is essentially unlimited, and then provides an indicator or a guide to direct the user to make the required movement of the cursor to the unrestricted location.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,500,936 discloses a multi-media slide presentation system which can be superimposed on a standard computer GUI. Each slide in the multimedia slide presentation may contain photographs, text, graphics, and charts. By actuating and releasing a control button of the mouse or trackball, a pop-up menu is displayed to aid the user to make selections that operate on the slides and objects on the slides. The text menu items may also indicate pop-up menus when selected.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,644,692 discloses a specialized GUI for displaying information about a very large number of entities, such as files. The entity representations in the GUI are contained in columns which represent contexts for the entities. In one embodiment, the entities are lines of text and the contexts are files containing the lines. A selector with a set of colored fields corresponding to values of attributes of the entities is provided. When either an entity representation or a selector field is activated by means of a pointing device, the selector field and all of the entity representations for entities of the attribute value corresponding to the selector are turned on and appear in the same color. The pointing device may also be used to specify an entity representation for detailed viewing.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of displaying a thumbnail relating to an electronically-stored file in an electronically-stored folder, the folder being capable of retaining a plurality of files. At least one icon relating to a file retained in the folder is displayed. Thumbnail data is derived for each file in the folder. The thumbnail data for each icon in the folder is stored in a cache, and an association is created between each file in the folder and the thumbnail data relating to the file in the cache. When the icon relating to a file in the folder is indicated by a cursor, the thumbnail data relating to the file relating to the icon is retrieved from the cache and displayed.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of displaying a thumbnail relating to an electronically-stored file in an electronically-stored folder, the folder being capable of retaining a plurality of files. At least one icon relating to a file retained in the folder is displayed. When the icon relating to a file is indicated by a cursor, the thumbnail data relating to the file related to the icon is displayed by touching the cursor to the icon without a mouse-click.